The OSRP's mission is to remove excess, unwanted, abandoned, or orphan radioactive sealed sources that may pose a risk to health, safety, and national security.
One of the issues faced by the early Environmental Management program was substantial amounts of radioactive and hazardous materials at universities and other locations left over from contracts and grants into various aspect of nuclear technology research.
As a result, in 2003, OSRP direction and oversight moved from the Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management, to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The recently expanded mission also includes recovery of beta or gamma emitting sources, like caesium and strontium.
OSRP has been able to recover more than 45,000 sources from nearly 1588 sites all 50 States, the DC area, Puerto Rico and 50 foreign countries.